The All-Ireland camogie championships get underway this weekend, and Clare are one of the counties looking to upset the current camogie order - but more on that later.
Lorna McNamara is back in with the Banner this year after spending the last two seasons out with a groin injury.
She hasn't got over the chronic pain but instead is learning how to live with it, with some of her training tailored to take some of the load off.
Her return was helped by Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) surgery, but it's an ongoing issue for the 24-year-old.
"It's tough enough, the chronic groin thing is ongoing," she said after picking up the PwC GPA Player of the Month for April in camogie.
"It's just a matter of managing the load and just preparing for matches and training when I can, really.
"If I've trained in the evening, I'm up in the morning before work, basically doing a warm-up session in the gym just to try and get a bit of movement in. I try to keep the steps up throughout the day, and activation before training, as well."
"No one has really told me exactly what it is," she continues.
"It's sort of a tendinopathy on my adductor, so just there in my groin. It's just a matter of warming it up really well before games and even half a bottle of deep heat, if you like.
"At training, I should only really stick to the hurling, but there's times where you feel guilty for missing out on the running session, so you do a running session.
"Next morning you wake up and it's at you again. A lot of the time, if I manage it well, I can wake up the next day and be fine to train again whenever it's on.
"But when it does flare up, it just takes a little bit of time to get right again."
All of the pain and the planning is, for now, worth it as Clare look to push on from a run to the All-Ireland quarter-finals last year.
In the last decade and a half, Galway, Kilkenny and Cork have had a hold on the biggest prize in camogie.
You have to go back to 2012 for the last time a county outside of that trio claimed the title when Wexford lifted their third title on the spin, and their fourth in six years.
The Tribeswomen and the Rebels will compete in Group 1 of the All-Ireland Championships, meaning their place in the knockout stages is already guaranteed.
Alongside Waterford and Tipperary, who both reached the last four in 2025, they're playing for places, with the top two heading straight to the semi-finals, while the bottom two must face a quarter-final.
The sides they face will come out of Group 2, where six counties are playing for just two places, with Clare amongst them.
The side they beat in the Centra Camogie Division 1B final, Dublin, are also there. While Leinster champions Wexford, who also inflicted defeat on the Dubs in that provincial final, will have eyes on a top-two spot.
Kilkenny, All-Ireland champions twice in this decade, will be the favourites to top the group before the action gets underway, while Tipperary and Offaly will be looking to cause some surprises.
"That's the hope anyways," McNamara says when asked if Clare can go far this summer.
"It'll be tough to make it out of our own group. It's five games we have, so we'll just have to put the head down and really work hard to try and make it out of our own group.
"We have three games in a row, so you really know where you're going to stand after those three games. Hopefully, if we win those, the pressure is off for the last two games, but it is going to be a big battle, definitely, between all of us.
"If we do (get through), you never know what can happen in a quarter-final."
The Banner begin their campaign against Dublin, a side they've already played twice this year.
The pair drew in Abbotstown in the regular phase of the league before the Munster woman got goals when it mattered to claim the 1B league title, and the promotion that went with it, by 3-11 to 0-17.
"Dublin are obviously going to be out for revenge against us," McNamara says of their clash later this month.
"Facing them in the first round of the league, neither team really gave their full hand. In the final then we gave that bit more alright.
"But again, you learn things every day you go out playing a team, so we'll have picked up on things, they'll have picked up on things, and it should be a good battle again."
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